I Remember Us
by Kanna37
Summary: 'Do you really remember me' The answer to that question stuns Zelda, and suddenly, it's her memory that's being questioned. Canon into AR.


**I Remember Us**

**~oOo~**

It's over. It's over. _It's over._

That small sentence kept playing and replaying through Link's mind; like an echo on the water, it skipped and danced across an otherwise empty landscape.

Shock, he thought after several more moments had passed, words coming to him piecemeal and chaotic through the fog. Goddesses knew it was well-deserved, considering the titanic struggle that had just ended mere seconds before. He felt hollowed, weary beyond measure, as the adrenaline that had fueled his body for the last - hours? days? - ebbed away.

Attempting to bring himself back to some form of order, he did a self-check, looking for wounds that the adrenaline might have muted during the fight. He was surprised to find that other than some small surface cuts and bruising here and there, he had come from the battle with very little in the way of injuries, for which he was _quite _thankful. There was nothing that a little hearty food wouldn't cure easily enough.

He was reminded rather suddenly that he was not alone anymore, when a delicate feminine voice cut through his numbed state, and his thoughts scattered on startled wings at the sound.

Zelda.

It was the princess. _His _princess, the one he'd spent every moment since his awakening working towards freeing from the Calamity's grasp.

And he'd been successful. Finally, and just in time. She wouldn't have been able to hold the beast back any longer, and a sense of guilt, heavy for all its gilded shame, settled over him. Here he was, considering _himself _weary, when she had just spent an entire_ century_ battling the biggest monster of them all.

His feet took control of his body, and began moving him closer to the woman he'd managed, despite all his bumbling - and his failure a century ago - to rescue. They did it with no volition, and his mind turned to her without further bidding as he grasped at the sound of her voice, as though she would disappear if he didn't hear every last soft cadence, if he missed even the faintest sound she gifted him with. Then he reminded himself that he no longer _had _to clutch at every tiny bit of her he could get. She was there, _with him_, and he could drown himself in her presence like he'd so longed to do, from the moment he'd first heard her speak after he'd woken from his century-long slumber.

Coming to a halt a few paces behind her, he listened to her, though the words had no real meaning to him at that point, still so dazed as he was. But when she turned around and he could finally see her sweet face with all its poignant hope and fearful uncertainty, her question broke through the haze shrouding his mind like an explosion.

"May I ask; do you really remember me?"

He couldn't help but think that question a loaded one, considering the answer to it, and he wondered, not for the first time, if _she _remembered. _Did _she perchance remember the _skyward bound, _the _adrift in time, _the _steeped in the glowing embers of twilight? _Had she remembered _the_ _Goddess and the Hero_, or did she only remember their current iterations?

"I do," he finally managed to find his voice, strangled as it had been beneath all the pain and loneliness of the century spent without her. His consciousness may have been asleep most of that time, but his soul had still been in pain – an agony of separation from the other half of itself that could only be soothed by its reunification. "But... do you remember me, Your Grace? Do you remember _yourself? Truly?_"

And there it was. The one thing that had been unvoiced – and unremembered – for tens of thousands of years came full circle, back to the very beginning... before she'd become _Zelda, _before she'd become_ princess_.

Before_. _When she had still been _Hylia_, goddess of the race of humans she'd formed with her own two hands and a heart full of love, holy defender of the lands and people named in her honor for it.

His return query had apparently caught her off-guard; like ripples across the river of time, it chased her previous emotions from her face, leaving only caution behind.

"Of what do you speak?"

Now it was Link's features that became edged by apprehension, and his face fell as it seemed to him in that moment that she did _not _remember their history, the long-standing bond that had kept them locked in a cosmic dance together since time immemorial. Drawing a deep breath and summoning every bit of courage he possessed, he answered her tentative question.

"When you blessed me with the champions as witnesses, you spoke of the land in the sky, of twilight, of lives adrift in time. Of the Goddess, and the Hero_. _ Are they still merely ritualistic words to you, or _do you_ _remember_?"

Link nearly sank to his knees with relief when a brilliant smile washed Zelda's caution away, and he _did _when she stumbled towards him with joy shining from her eyes and exhausted tears tracing her cheeks. He didn't even realize he was crying, as well, until she fell to her own knees and wiped the tears away with graceful, trembling fingers.

"Link," she breathed, her eyes falling closed for a moment at the comfort his words and presence had brought to her weary soul, before opening once more, their verdant green shimmering with bittersweet elation. "My chosen, my Hero_. I remember. _I remember all of it. Every lifetime spent in service to Hyrule and her people, every terrible time we have been forced apart by duty, every bit of anguish we have both suffered because of it. But all that is over – _over and done._ Ganon gave up on the cycle of reincarnation to bring all of his power to bear on you, my love, and he failed. He _failed, _Link! We are forever freed of the threat he posed, free to be together, to finally choose our _own_ lives and live them without responsibility to any other destiny!"

Unable to hold himself back any longer, he wrapped his arms around her and crushed her to him, burying his face against her shoulder as his tears increased.

In turn, Zelda clutched at him, her own relieved euphoria sending more tears down her face, as well. But they were good tears, cleansing tears. They were tears that washed away the agony of lifetimes that she had been forced to watch her hero suffer, when she had watched him _die_, all for the duty he had accepted at her own hand so many ages ago.

It took a few moments before she realized he was speaking, soft words filled with so much sorrow and heartbreak and tentative joy, so much _love; _a thousand emotions that tumbled from his lips and brushed gently against her skin.

_Zelda, my Zelda,_ _I love you. __I love you__. I've missed you __so__ much. Please, __please__ never__ leave me again. Let me stay by your side forever._

The ground was hard and broken beneath her knees, but she hardly noticed, unable to care about anything but the man in her arms, and the love she had for him that she was now and forever free – finally free! - to express. There was no longer a need for a princess and a hero, and no more would she be forced to marry another for the so-called 'good of the kingdom'. Hyrule could choose its own form of government now, and she could disappear into the wilds with the man she had loved since before there was even a Hyrule to consider.

Since almost the beginning of time, were the truth to be told.

She had been – and still was – Hylia. Time had been hers, it flowed through her and around her, an intrinsic part of her. She had been able to look and walk through all of it, past and present and future, with ease. Thus, she had known that she would love one member of her people above all others, well before it had come to be so. And through all her chosen's lives and his dedication to her in every one, his soul had become more and more refined – a gentle but powerful soul that would cleave only to her own forever.

"I promise, my Link, I promise. I shall allow no one to part us ever again," she finally whispered in return, resting her cheek against his head as he continued to breathe reverence and affection into her skin – skin that was being bathed of its stains by his tears as he cried out more pain than _any_ one soul should ever have been forced to carry.

A sad, painful smile crossed her face.

_And who has more right to cry than my brave champion, after all? So many seemingly endless lifetimes we have existed, and so very few that we were able to be truly reunited. The agony of parting, of being forced away from each other in duty's name, still taints both of our souls. And for me, the anguish of not only being forced to let my Hero go as I was bound to another in marriage, but of those times that I watched him suffer and die, but was unable to do anything about it... _she shuddered with the remembered horror of it all.

_My tears are anointing his skin, as well. I suppose we must purge the poison before we can move on._

Much time passed unnoticed by the two who needed each other so desperately, as they both bled out the blight inside them through their tears and their tight grasp upon one another. So many promises were made between them during that time - promises of love and light, and the forever that they now had, silent words that soothed the broken fragments of their souls. Slowly, so very slowly, their shattered minds calmed and began to piece themselves back together now that the demon king's venom was truly gone and not just temporarily sealed, and their tears diminished, and then ended as they once more became aware of their surroundings.

It was Link, ever the practical one, that eventually got them both going again with the need to find a place to make camp for the rest of the afternoon, and the night which was still to come. There was plenty more to speak of, but it could wait for a few hours, and the assurance of their safety.

"We can figure out tomorrow once we've settled today," he said, and though his voice still held a trace of sadness, it was being overcome and subsumed by the sheer, unmitigated joy that was welling up inside him for the fact that they even _had _a tomorrow to speak of.

~oOo~

"You know we will have to go see Impa before doing anything else," Zelda said, and Link looked up at her from where he was working to make them something for supper, the firelight causing his features to glow. "She'll send all her people looking, if we don't."

He smiled at her after a moment, his eyes going back to what he was doing – though he was having a hard time looking away from her at all. He wanted nothing more than to stare at her for the next century, her luminous eyes and gently flushed skin making it quite difficult for him to pay attention to anything else. But they both needed food, so he forced himself to concentrate on his task, hard as it was.

She had already had a small bath and Link had returned her champion's outfit to her, along with her boots and socks, so that she could be rid of the dress she'd come to loathe, the dress that was irreversibly stained by the horror and muck of a century past. He had made sure to retrieve her belongings from Impa, who had been keeping them with hope against this very day, before heading for Hyrule Castle to defeat Ganon and free her.

She had almost knocked them both over when he'd handed them to her, throwing herself into his arms with a delighted, "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I was _not _looking forward to traveling in this cursed dress!"

He hadn't minded the impromptu affection in the least, starved as he was for it.

His smile shifted to a smirk as he responded to her earlier statement. "I warned her beforehand that it would probably be a few days before we made it to Kakariko."

"And she just agreed to that without argument?" Zelda asked, her tone incredulous.

Link shrugged. "I didn't give her the chance _to_ argue. I just left."

A slightly disbelieving peal of laughter met that statement, and he couldn't help the fond light that brightened his eyes at the sweet, sweet sound. _Goddesses_, he had missed her. Even before he had known _what_ was absent from his life, he had known that something _was;_ there had been a void inside him - besides the one caused by his lost memories - that nothing had been able to fill until now. It was the absence of something far more important to him than even his misplaced past had been... it was the absence of _her._

"I find it most difficult to imagine Impa ever allowing that to stop her. If she wasn't able herself, she would have sent her strongest warriors to retrieve you until she'd had her satisfaction of her questions and demands. If you've remembered anything of our past, you know I'm right."

She wasn't just referencing this lifetime, and Link knew it. In all her lives, Impa had been a force to be reckoned with, and telling him off had never bothered her in any way. He specifically remembered the first time he had ever met her, guiding Zelda through the necessary rituals to awaken her power, while keeping her away from Ghirahim. She had not hesitated to lash him with caustic words about his perceived failure in guarding the goddess in mortal form from the power-mad servant of Demise. He'd been quite ashamed of himself under her stern eye, and had vowed not to fail again. And despite the fact that in this particular lifetime he had been a friend for several years before the calamity had freed itself from its prior sealing, she still hadn't seemed to mind tanning his hide with sharp words if she felt they were needed.

He chuckled with warmth as he reminisced on those lifetimes for a few moments, before answering Zelda's assertion.

"Well, just because they're her best warriors doesn't mean they'd succeed. I _am_ a deadly weapon, after all."

"Oh, no," Zelda rolled her eyes and sighed, playing along, "there's that ego speaking, again. I thought it had surely been purged from you by now, but it appears I was mistaken."

A laugh met her statement as he set the skewered food at the edges of the fire, then moved back and settled in to wait for it to cook. He sat down next to her and bumped shoulders with her.

"That's not ego talking, it's just the truth. If I wasn't the best warrior in Hyrule a hundred years ago, I certainly should be now after going through all _one hundred and forty-six _of those _thrice-damned shrines. _Those guys had _no _problem turning me inside and out in order to defeat their puzzles and combat trials, and whatnot. They were _not _easy taskmasters."

"No," Zelda breathed, as she lay her head against his shoulder, "they were not. But I know we would not have had the final victory without their assistance, and I am more grateful than I can ever say for their service through so many thousands of years. They can also rest easy now, like all the others that have helped us along the way in each of our lives, with every blessing I can send them."

It fell silent for a little while, and then...

"It's a blessing just being able to sit with you like this, finally at peace, and without the worry of someone trying to pull us apart," Link murmured, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her closer. He rested his cheek against the top of her head, bestowing small kisses on her here and there as they spoke, and smiling when he felt her gentle shivering beneath his touch.

This... was _bliss_. Just the chance to _be _with her without fear was paradise, to him. So many of their lifetimes had come and gone without such a freedom, and even knowing that he no longer needed to worry about that kind of thing happening again, didn't ease the pain of those past lessons. It had happened too many times for him to ever forget what those losses had taught him.

Time was a precious hope, not a guarantee. Hold on to every single second life allowed you, or you would bitterly regret it. And he had. So many, many times.

Zelda sighed contentedly beneath his gentle affection. "Yes," she finally agreed softly, "it is. And if Impa is truly not expecting us for a few days, then I am quite pleased for the chance to just... be us. Free and happy and uncomplicated, as we were so long ago in Skyloft, before all this truly began. Do you remember? The days when we would soar through the skies and laugh and play, when no heavy hand of fate had yet descended upon us? When all the memories came to me as I kept Ganon at bay, and I knew myself, and you, and the complexity of our history in all its fullness, I sorely missed those days. Truth be told, I still do," she admitted.

Link felt a pang of homesickness when her words broke over him, and he had to admit, he missed those days, too. The only thing he _didn't_ miss from that lifetime, was the fear he'd suffered over asking her father for her hand after they'd returned triumphant from the surface world. That had been _terrifying_, and he was quite pleased to realize it was an experience that would not need to be repeated, since this time neither of them had living parents - or even family members, for that matter. And while that saddened him in some ways, in the end he couldn't help but also be glad of it. There was no one left to interfere between them, ever again.

That thought brought a grin to his face, one that Zelda seemed to sense somehow, as she lifted her head at just that moment and narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.

"What are you thinking?" she asked slowly, trying to keep an answering smile from her face for just a few moments more. "What kind of trouble are you brewing in that head of yours now, Link?"

"You wound me, princess. Don't you trust me?" His grin widened as her serious look faltered, and then fell to her rising amusement. He hugged her tighter for a moment, and then nudged her gently aside so that he could check on their food.

"Trust has nothing to do with it; I _know_ you, and know well the trouble you can cause with even the slightest bit of encouragement," she declared, trying (and failing) to hold her position, despite her inevitable failure in said task. "You're up to something, now tell me what it is!"

He chuckled, shaking his head as he determined their food finished enough to go on with. He handed a skewer to her after blowing on it to cool it down a little.

"Nothing to worry about, truly. Just enjoying the chance to be at peace with my favorite person in all the world. You needn't be concerned, I promise."

"Mmm. We'll see about that," she managed around several bites, having suddenly realized just how starved she was as soon as she got her first taste. "That look on your face has never meant anything good, and I doubt it does now."

"Depends on what you mean by anything good, I suppose. But for right now, I'm too hungry to act on my thoughts. Ask me again once we're finished eating."

"If I wait 'til _you've_ finished eating, I'll be waiting _another_ hundred lifetimes," she bemoaned playfully.

Link's eyes flashed brightly in the light of the fire as they darted up to meet hers at that, fierce and focused; _hungry _as the wild inside him peered out... and she knew it wasn't _food _he was thinking of then.

"I wouldn't count on it, if I were you, Zel. I'm _done_ with that kind of waiting."

The dark promise in his voice sent liquid fire down her spine, and his words had shivers following right after.

_Then we're both done with that kind of waiting, and I welcome whatever comes of it with open arms and joy in my heart, my sweet, sweet Link._

~oOo~

"Open your eyes. Wake up, Zelda."

Link was tempted to laugh at his reversal of what her first words to him had been when he'd woken from his century long nap. It seemed his fine sense of the ironic was still in functional order, despite everything that had happened.

"Come on, princess, or you'll miss it."

"Miss what?" came her garbled, truculent response as she desperately tried to keep her eyes closed against his prodding.

"Something I've been wanting to show you since I found it."

"Can't it wait for later?" she whined, clearly not ready to be awakened from her first sleep in a century.

"It can, but _I _can't. Now come on, sleepyhead."

(Oh, the turnaround points on _this_ situational bit of irony were multiplying _fast..._)

Zelda remembered that nickname, she had called him that in several lifetimes, and despite her weariness and reluctance to be awake, she opened her eyes and squinted up at Link threateningly in the pre-dawn darkness.

"Sleepyhead?! I'll give _you_ sleepyhead if you're making me wake up for something silly! A girl needs her beauty sleep, you know, and I haven't had one in a hundred years."

"And yet you're more beautiful now than you were even then," Link shot back smoothly. "You'd be beautiful if you never slept again."

What could she say to that? Absolutely nothing, so she sighed with resignation and reluctantly gave in. "Fine, fine. What is so important that it cannot wait for later?"

"Well, get up and get dressed, and I'll show you. You can't see it from here."

Grumble, grumble, grumble... "-wouldn't have to _get dressed_ if you hadn't stripped me of every bit of my clothes last night, you lecher."

Link's cheeks flushed just the slightest bit with heat at that reminder of what had occurred between them the previous evening, and he grinned to himself. Once he had finished showing her what he needed to, they could come back to camp, and maybe repeat the referenced circumstances again. He'd gladly take on the job of ridding her of her clothes whenever she wished it.

Or whenever he just couldn't resist her anymore, and his need prodded her own.

"I don't recall you minding that last night," he poked at her, laughing. "In fact, I couldn't remove them fast enough for your liking, if I remember correctly."

"Beast," she muttered as she rose from their bedding and began the tedious process of dressing herself again. "You are a beast, Link, to use such circumstances against me in a battle I cannot win. Mayhap I will simply stay dressed from now on, so you cannot use it against me again."

"I'd just have to work harder to peel you out of your armor, then, Zel," he shrugged as he handed her boots over. "I've been without you for far too many lifetimes, and I have no intention of ever going without you again. And I _do _mean that both ways..."

Irritation overcome by his frank words and the love in his eyes – though there wasn't much real irritation there to begin with, truthfully – Zelda blushed and lowered her gaze to the ties of her boots, somehow shy now, after everything that had happened between them last night. (As well as in many other lives, truth be told.) It was ridiculous and she knew that, but couldn't seem to help the reaction, nonetheless.

"Yes, well, once you've shown me whatever it is you are so eager for me to see, I am coming back here and going straight back to bed. The day can just wait until I am ready to greet it."

Link was unconcerned with that. They were in as safe a place as they could be outside of a village, tucked in a pretty, very well-hidden dell that he'd accidentally stumbled into while hiding from roving guardians some few weeks back, with a little creek running around the edge of it. There weren't any people for miles, and what monsters there had been were already disappearing now that their master's power was gone, now that _he _was permanently gone. So if she wanted to stay, then stay they would. He had enough supplies in Epona's saddlebags to last another several days, if that were the case.

His thoughts were interrupted by her hand waving in front of his face, and he took it in his own. Then he leaned over and brushed a kiss against her cheek before tugging her along in his wake as he led her out of their little hollow. Just in time, too; the sun was only barely beginning to peek over the horizon, and what he wanted to show her would be at its very best.

It _was_. As Zelda's eyes came to rest on the view before her, her lips parted in wonderment, and a flush of surprised pleasure washed pink into her cheeks.

The land opened up in a wide arc from their vantage point, the skies erupting in colors unimaginable, the fields of Hyrule absolutely sparkling with morning dew. But above all else, the Silent Princess danced gracefully in the new-morn's breeze, the dew as diamonds scattered haphazardly across her glowing raiment - her delicate white and blue petals, and verdant foliage. An entire field of them, something that Zelda had never seen before, nor ever imagined she would. The Silent Princess had been on the verge of extinction for several generations... but it was clear it was no longer, and her heart welled up with so much _hope_ that she could barely contain it. If the princess were able to survive, and even thrive through all the adversity of the last century, then surely, the Hyrule that existed now could do the same without any guidance from her.

"It's beautiful," she murmured in that hushed way people did at that time in the morning, her eyes running back and forth between him and the view. "Oh, Link, it's so_ beautiful_. Thank you for showing me this! Thank you for freeing me, and us, and giving us the time to live to our fullest, to stop and see the beauty that lies all around... the chance to fly, once again, even if it is only in your arms."

She blushed a little deeper as she said it, but Link didn't take up the chance to tease her – there was a time and a place for that, but this moment was not it.

_This_ moment was for something else, entirely.

"I would do it all again, just for the chance to stand here with you now."

Something in the way he said those words caught her attention, and she looked at him, head tilted to the side in slightly confused curiosity. And so it was that when Link dropped to one knee before her, she knew what was on his mind. Her fingers covered her mouth as a small sob broke from her, and Link couldn't have loved her any more than he did in that moment. She gazed at him through tear-rimmed emerald eyes in the cool breeze, and waited for words she'd _been_ waiting on for so very, very many lifetimes.

He had been waiting just as long to say them, and he could scarce believe that the time had come. That _their_ time had finally come.

With the bright horizon tracing her fair features, and the prismatic sparkling of the light through the tears gracing her cheeks rendering her more vivid and _alive_ than he'd ever seen her, Link spoke his heart, and she listened.

"In all the lifetimes since I first beheld you as the goddess you truly are, no other has ever managed to make me forget my love for you, and no one ever will. Always, you have been the very heart of me, and without you, I would surely wither and die, as I have before. But now that I no longer need fear that happening again, I ask you one final time, my Zelda, for your hand in marriage. If I have managed to win any grace from you with my service in your name, then I beg you to grant me the only thing I have ever desired in return – a life spent forever by your side."

Overwhelmed by too many sharp emotions to even begin untangling them, pain and sadness and joy_, so much joy, _the young woman stared down at the man she had always loved, at the one who was the other half of her heart and soul, tears continuing to roll down her flushed cheeks. Her mouth worked brokenly for a moment as she tried to answer him, but there were just too many thoughts and feelings and _words_ clamoring inside her, so she finally gave up and choked out the most heartfelt, _"Yes,"_ that Link had ever heard, instead.

And with that one simple word, she granted him what he'd always longed for; indeed, her hand was the only reward he had ever desired, and only now was she able to grant his request in full. So much hope, so much _love _flooded through him as he took in her answer, that he was almost disbelieving. Nothing had ever felt so _real,_ however, so he knew it wasn't just another of the thousands of dreams he'd had of this moment over so many lifetimes... Relief and euphoria were welling up within both of them, and excited with it, Link shot to his feet and pulled her into an adoring and needy embrace.

As the sun fully broke the horizon and the new day took its first breath, fate's most star-crossed lovers grasped their freedom as they did each other, their destinies all their own, now. The demon king's curse, the words he had uttered so many hundreds of lifetimes ago, lay fully shattered at their feet, never to be reforged again.

All of creation, and even Time itself, rejoiced with them - the white goddess, Hylia, and Link, her mortal, golden consort.

_fin_


End file.
